Sec. Clinton: 'Going on the Sunday shows is not my favorite thing to do'

1/23/13 3:45 PM EST

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that she does not like going on the Sunday shows.

"I have to confess, here in public, going on the Sunday shows is not my favorite thing to do," she said during today's hearings on the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks in Benghazi, Libya. "There are other things I'd prefer to do on Sunday mornings. I haven't been on a Sunday show in way over a year. It just isn't something I normally jump to do."

"I did feel strongly that we had a lot that we had to manage, that I had to respond to, and I thought that should be my priority," she added.

Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) had asked Sec. Clinton why she had not appeared on the Sunday political affairs programs in the aftermath of the attack, a responsibility that fell to UN Ambassador Susan Rice. In response to Secretary Clinton's answer, Wilson said one of her priorities should have been "telling correct informaiton" to the public.

In the wake of the attack, the Obama administration sent Ambassador Rice on a tour of the Sunday shows, where she said the deaths in Benghazi may have been due to spontaneous protests. The controversy over those statements would become so heated that Amb. Rice would later withdraw her name from consideration as Sec. Clinton's successor at the State Dept.